After some irregularity in publication, I’m back on track with “almost” weekly issues. And by the way, I’m glad to see more subscribers joining last week. Remember, if you find this bulletin useful or interesting, please, spread the word.
Recent balloon launches and landings
On April 6, 2023, Iwaya Giken, the Japanese startup trying to offer in the near future manned balloon trips to near space, performed a new test of their unpressurized balloon system.
The low-altitude mission was performed using a balloon manufactured by the firm and ascended to a maximum height of 2843 meters above rural Hokkaido.
The manned capsule flew for a little more than an hour traveling almost 19 kilometers.
A video was published by the company on his Youtube Channel. In the piece, different moments of the mission were shown, from the preparations, some shots from on-board cameras, and finally the landing, which was not without a certain emotion, since towards the end of the flight the pilot had to eject a large amount of ballast -including his own helmet and some other elements- to avoid a somewhat hard landing in the middle of a forest.
On the first week of April, Aerostar, the South Dakota-based balloon firm moved a launch team to southern Arizona to perform a series of flights in the area with their Thunderhead balloons.
As you may remember from previous issues of this bulletin, the Thunderhead is a steerable multipurpose balloon developed for stratospheric missions of long duration, with navigational capabilities and the ability to perform persistent flight over areas of interest. The balloons can be flown individually or in groups (called "constellations") to support a wide range of requirements including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; to serve as an alternative to satellite communications or make surveys of ground, marine, and environmental objectives.
During the week-long operation, four systems were launched one of which (HBAL-626) failed early on its mission and landed merely three hours later.
The operations were carried out from an open field belonging to a chemical firm located southwest of Buckeye, Arizona.
The first two balloons were sent aloft on consecutive days: HBAL-624 on April 8 and HBAL-625 on April 9. After some hovering across the southern part of the state, (with HBAL-625 crossing above Phoenix and HBAL-624 moving into New Mexico and back), in the next couple of days, both platforms maintained a hovering pattern in an area located SE of Phoenix.
The presence of the balloons did not go unnoticed by the general population, who still keep the memory of the Chinese balloon incident fresh and began to wonder if they were facing an "increased" reissue of that event.
On April 10 a curious “coincidence” occurred in time and space between the two Thunderhead balloons and a USAF E-3 Sentry plane, which suggested some sort of interaction between the plane and the balloons. The plane departed Tinker AFB in Oklahoma at 17:15 UTC and arrived at the orbiting area SE of Phoenix on which were the balloons at about 19:00 utc. It started to perform some kind of pattern nearby and below the balloons, remaining there until 20:45 UTC when it broke out and returned to its home base.
Some OSINT sources, however, pointed out that is not uncommon for military planes to operate in the area which is where is located the so-called OUTLAW MOA (Military Operation Area), so there are chances that the operation was not related to the presence of the balloons.
On April 12, a third balloon (HBAL-627) was launched this time from a site located near Florence, also in Arizona. The new member of the fleet joined their partners east of Phoenix and after some more hovering in the area, the trio departed on a cross-country cruise that would end with the landing of the three crafts in low-populated rural areas in South Dakota on April 17, with some hours of difference between each other.
In a recent interview with Sioux Falls Business, Aerostar’s President Jim Nelson confirmed that the firm moved operations to Hurley Airfield, as we have seen in the last couple of weeks. There, the company leases a hangar that it uses for balloon launches, transitioning away from the former Raven Innovation Campus near Baltic in use for launch operations for many years.
As stated in the interview, the firm is also planning to move its offices from its current location in downtown Sioux Falls to The Docks, a new industrial park outside the city, remarking the new independent vision of the company. We must remember that in July 2021 the then-denominated Raven Aerostar was acquired by TCOM, LP, a firm specialized in ISR solutions based on Lighter-Than-Air platforms, and became Aerostar International LLC.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in Wanaka, New Zealand, the NASA balloon program achieved great success with the launch at first try of their Super Pressure Balloon (SPB).
This represents a first in NASA’s troubled history of operations in Wanaka.
The launch of mission 728NT took place on April 15 at about 23:40 utc.
In the images below we can see the sequence of the inflation. The small “tow” balloon located in the apex helps to unfold evenly the very delicate fabric of the SPB avoiding any kind of damage to the surface or the appearance of an irregular unfolding pattern that could lead to an anomaly of any kind during the critical phase of pressurization.
Some concerns arose at first due to an apparent failure or malfunction in the onboard transponder system which “froze” when the balloon reached 56.000 ft. The same occurred in other tracking apps. During a few minutes, the world outside the launch base didn’t know if it was merely a failure in the reading or if the mission failed at an early stage.
Hopefully, after a while, all doubts were gone when the tracking returned, and the live feed video -transmitted during the initial portions of the flight- showed a healthy and fully pressurized SPB.
The balloon reached its planned altitude of 108.000 ft (which would remain mostly constant even at night) and followed a northward pattern across the southern island of New Zealand, entering the Pacific Ocean south of Christchurch in the evening.
Stunning images were obtained from people on the ground as we can see in the sampler below.
If all goes as expected, the crossing of the Pacific Ocean could be completed in about ten days. Real-time tracking of the balloon (updated every 15 minutes) is available here.
Once the balloon has crossed the Andes mountain range, and into Argentinian territory, the scientists will jettison a small capsule that will float to the ground under a parachute. Inside will be a hard disk containing part of the data obtained by the instrument so far. This will assure the recovery of the data obtained in case of the loss of the instrument. The telescope transports four of such data recovery pods.
Back in Wanaka, scientists are preparing the second instrument to be launched during this season: EUSO-SPB2
No probable date for the launch has been announced yet as the instrument is still being readied for the first compatibility tests next week.
What’s on in the field
Upcoming test on the Canary Islands by B2Space
B2Space the UK-based firm founded in 2016 to provide reliable, flexible, and low-cost access to Low Earth Orbit for small and microsatellites, announced in early April the realization of a balloon-based flight test for Startical, a company formed by Indra and Enaire. The company´s objective is to deploy a constellation of small satellites that will enable surveillance and communication services to be provided.
The test will involve the launch of a 200kg payload using a balloon developed by B2Space as part of the Hawk Programme, from an unspecified location in the Canary Islands.
The announcement included a picture of another test performed by the company in the area in 2022 on which a B2Space balloon was launched from the deck of the Spanish Navy patrol vessel P42 “Rayo”.
The image makes me think that a similar procedure may be used for the upcoming mission.
Using a zero-pressure balloon, B2Space will be launching a satellite payload under the balloon which will reach altitudes between 14 and 21km and will be flying for up to 48 hours. The system will be moving in this range depending on the wind direction to be able to move in accordance with the path desired.
These maneuvers will be achieved by the combined use of a valve in the balloon along with a ballast container, both developed by B2Space.
UPDATE: A few hours before publishing this issue of Weekly Balloon News, I found that the article is no longer available on the web of B2Space. Could this be an indication of a failed test, a delay, or a cancellation?
A first glimpse at new balloon launch facilities in Timmins
Timmins Daily Press published last week an article about the expansion works on the Victor M. Power airport which houses the Timmins Stratospheric Balloon Base, located in that city of the Ontario Province in Canada.
For the first time, we can see pictures of the new facilities which will allow better work during the yearly balloon launch campaigns held there by CNES and the Canadian Space Agency.
Return to HIBAL’s glory days in Mildura
ABC News from Australia published a lengthy article about one of the lesser-known balloon programs in the country: the HIBAL (High Altitude Balloons) initiative.
The program was the Australian leg of the stratospheric air and dust sampling program known as ASHCAN carried out in the southern hemisphere since 1960 by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) of the United States to study the levels of radioactive elements injected in the stratosphere by the many atomic experiments made by that country in the Pacific Ocean since 1949.
The Department of Supply (DOS) of the Australian government following an agreement at the Federal Government level, established in 1960 the Australian Balloon Launching Station (ABLS) at the facilities of the local airport in Mildura.
The article is illustrated with a series of never-before-seen images of the operations.
After some research, I’ve finally found a repository of these images in the Mildura Rural City Council Library. The collection belongs to Ted Lawton who was part of the project back in the 1960s.
A nice surprise was also to discover that the fantastic book Project HIBAL by Steven Thorn is also available online. But I will return to this particular point in the next issue of this bulletin.
And That’s all folks. For the second time in a row, I’ve run out of space to include some interesting aftermaths of the Chinese Balloon Affair and recent additions to StratoCat. I hope to make it the central part of the upcoming issue (if nothing more relevant happens first).
Thanks for reading and support, stay tuned next week and as usual, spread the word!
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